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This summer I helped to organize my 20-year high school reunion. As the Marketing Director-type on the three-person committee, I was charged with the visual and promotional side of things. I designed the invitations, set us up on Facebook, and thought through the decorations.

To say our budget was tight was an understatement. My two dear friends and I were footing the bill for this thing and praying that our classmates would make their reservations. My goal for the decorations was to spend as little as possible but still have a nice, thoughtful vibe for the event.

And we don't look 20 years out of high school, do we? DO WE?!?

I was inspired by by Miss Mustard Seed, who even gives a tutorial on letter-glittering but first of all, I couldn’t afford the German glass and secondly, I couldn’t find chipboard numbers ANYWHERE! I was fine doing my own gluing and glittering—I have a first-grade daughter for goodness sake, I knew I would have assistance. I checked everywhere (meaning online and at every hobby store in town) and I could find a lot of chipboard letters but no numbers. I could find thick wooden numbers and sticker numbers but no chipboard numbers.

OK, so nobody mentioned the centerpieces but look how much they add. 🙂

What I did find was the number style I was looking for in a stencil and foam core board in our colors, blue and red. (You could just get white foam core and use the color glitter that you want but it’s a lot more difficult. The backs of these numbers were just not as nice. The white showed through.)

So I took out the Exacto Knife, cut me a bunch o’ 9s and 1s, and got to gluing and glittering. This was tedious work, so I just set up a glitter station on my dining table and went to it every day for 30 minutes or so.

I bought small dowels but realized that Bamboo Skewers worked a lot better than anything. They were the right size and weight plus their sharp ends poked into both the foam core and the floral foam I used at the bottom of the bucket

I owned the buckets already (from some past party) but found some additional ones at Garden Ridge for $4.99. Those along with some red and blue cellophane (about $5 per roll) and I think they turned out pretty good.

Glitter’s a bitch. It gets everywhere. Kids want to play in it and they track it everywhere on their shoes. And sometimes I had just worked out when I was working on it so it was sticking to my sweaty neck and stuff. In general I made a mess, but I was proud of the centerpieces.